Storm clouds gather and lightning strikes over the Houses of Parliament
thetimes.co.uk
I ended 2012 reading Virgina Woolf´s Orlando, which I enjoyed, specially the beginning of chapter V, where she explains the evolution of the century through a climate change.
And as a consequence, the clothes, the houses, the interior design, the landscape, were changed, due to the damp that filled everything, including the hearts.
I think the following paragraphs are a beautiful way of explaining the European habitat (though she refers to England). Of course there are many great passages in the book, but these are my favorite ones:
THE GREAT CLOUD WHICH
HUNG, not only over London, but over the
whole of the British Isles on the first day of
the nineteenth century stayed, or rather, did
not stay, for it was buffeted about constantly
by blustering gales, long enough to, have
extraordinary consequences upon those
who lived beneath its shadow.
A change seemed to have come over
the climate of England.
Rain fell frequently, but only in
fitful gusts, which were no sooner over
than they began again.
The sun shone, of course, but it was
so girt about with clouds and the air was
so saturated with water, that its beams
were discoloured — and purples, oranges,
and reds of a dull sort took the place of
the more positive landscapes of the
eighteenth century.
Under this bruised and sullen canopy
the green of the cabbages was less intense,
and the white of the snow was muddied.
But what was worse, damp now began
to make its way into every house — damp,
which is the most insidious of all enemies,
for while the sun can be shut out by blinds,
and the frost roasted by a hot fire, damp
steals in while we sleep; damp is silent,
imperceptible, ubiquitous.
Damp swells the wod, furs, the kettle, rusts the iron, rots the stone. So gradual is the process, that it is not
until we pick up some chest of drawers, or
coal scuttle, and the whole thing drops to
pieces in our hands, that we suspect even
that the disease is at work.
Thus, stealthily and imperceptibly,
none marking the exact day or hour of the
change, the constitution of England was
altered and nobody knew it.
Everywhere the effects were felt.
The hardy country gentleman, who had
sat down gladly to a meal of ale and beef
in a room designed, perhaps by the
brothers Adam, with classic dignity, now
felt chilly.
Rugs appeared; beards were grown;
trousers were fastened tight under the
instep.
The chill which he felt in his legs the
country gentleman soon transferred to his
house; furniture was muffled; walls and
tables were covered; nothing was left bare.
Then a change of diet became
essential.
The muffin was invented and the
crumpet.
Coffee supplanted the after-dinner
port, and, as coffee led to a drawing-room
in which to drink it, and a drawing-room
to glass cases, and glass cases to artificial
flowers, and artificial flowers to
mantelpieces, and mantelpieces to
pianofortes, and pianofortes to drawing room
ballads, and drawing-room ballads
(skipping a stage or two) to innumerable
little dogs, mats, and china
ornaments, the home — which had
become extremely important- was completely altered.
Outside the house — it was another
effect of the damp — ivy grew in
unparalleled profusion.
Houses that had been of bare stone
were smothered in greenery.
No garden, however formal its original
design, lacked a shrubbery, a
wilderness, a maze.
What light penetrated to the bedrooms
where children were born was naturally
of an obfusc green, and what light
penetrated to the drawing-rooms where
grown men and women lived came
through curtains of brown and purple
plush.
But the change did not stop at outward
things.
The damp struck within.
Men felt the chill in their hearts; the
damp in their minds.
In a desperate effort to snuggle their
feelings into some sort of warmth one
subterfuge was tried after another.
Love, birth, and death were all
swaddled in a variety of fine phrases.
The sexes drew further and further
apart.
No open conversation was tolerated.
